Larger Issue Lies Beneath Rezoning Request

May 22, 1986|By Steve and Cheryl Gray

On the surface, the comprehensive land-use change and rezoning petition now before the county commission for land in the Lakeview-Wells-Prairie Lake Drive area seems to be a clear-cut decision for the owners.

The county staff and planning and zoning commission favor changing the use along the south sides of those streets so they can be used for professional offices. The two petitioners claim that, as residential property, the land value is lowered because of commercial property across the street and the heavy traffic it causes.

The opposition, which numbers about 150 neighborhood residents, cites the same traffic problems, claiming they will get only worse with another three blocks of non-residential use. We worry about damage to the lake, either by this rezoning or by changes that will follow once the precedent of no commercial development is broken.

In the past, a development-prone county commission has, as Don Boyett pointed out in his column Sunday, allowed creeping commercialization by ''those who would steamroller their ideas for profit while not having to live next door to their creations.''

There is, however, a greater issue at stake here than individual profit from changing the allowed use of land. The raw, naked issue is whether the county commission is elected to serve the people or another master: individual profit at the expense of the public.

In several of the petitions now before the commission vast numbers of people from those areas have spoken out clearly against the changes.

What commissioners must decide now is whether to be responsible to the voting public or suffer at the polls the consequences of their actions.